Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Keeping With Year End Traditions

 "What you do when you don't have to, determines what you will be when you can no longer help it."

            -Rudyard Kipling

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Keeping With Year End Traditions

   "Poor is he who works with negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat. Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, but the one who gathers by labor increases it. A man do nothing better than find satisfaction in his work."

                        - King Solomon, c. 1000 B.C. 

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Keeping With Year End Traditions

"To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is power."

    - Joe Macdonald

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Keeping With Year End Traditions

 "Goodness is the only investment that never fails."

                        - Henry David Thoreau 

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Keeping With Year End Traditions

 "Keep a clear eye toward life's end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God's creature. What you are in His sight is what you are and nothing more.

Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received....but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage."

                                 -Francis of Assisi

 

 

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Keeping With Year End Traditions

 "The true test of civilization is not the census, not the size of the cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out."

                            - Emerson 

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: Keeping With Year End Traditions

 "There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second."

                        - Logan Parsall Smith 

Feel free to go back to December 2023 https://edwardquince.blogspot.com/2023/12/  

and December 2024 for more https://edwardquince.blogspot.com/2024/12/

Edward Quince's Wisdom Bites: The one about the six foot man

(Expanded from April 9, 2025)

In April, volatility reminded us of Howard Marks’ most memorable metaphor: the six-foot man who drowned crossing a stream five feet deep on average.

The Danger of Averages

You don’t live on averages. You live through drawdowns.

Leverage narrows the range of survivable outcomes. You can be right long-term and still be ruined on a bad Tuesday.

The Financial Takeaway

Survival is the only road to riches.

Leverage doesn’t add value—it magnifies outcomes. Build a margin of safety large enough to withstand bad luck, not just bad analysis.

Assume the stream has deep holes. Invest like someone who wants to stay in the game.

Fortune favors the unlevered—or at least the perpetually cautious.